


ships passing in the night

by cindo



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Soulmate AU, The one where there's a countdown to the day your soulmate dies on your wrist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 10:47:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13075257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cindo/pseuds/cindo
Summary: They save each other.(Soulmate AU where the number on your wrist counts down the days till your soulmate's death, and Laurent and Damen politely tell it to fuck off.)





	ships passing in the night

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Captive Prince Secret Santa 2017!

i.

His soulmate is going to die today.

Laurent brushes the number on the inside of his left wrist irreverently, the _zero_ staring back at him like an accusation. He’s never met his soulmate before, never met anyone who he might’ve wanted it to be.

Ever since he was thirteen, Laurent has scoffed at the idea of soulmates.

(Auguste is - was - as close to his soul as anyone could’ve been, and Laurent used to think, it would be okay if _he_ was.

Even if it was possible for your brother to be your soulmate -

The number on his wrist reads _2265_ on the day Auguste dies.)

It shouldn’t matter to him that his soulmate dies today, just a number on his wrist that will never change again, and besides, there are more pressing matters to deal with: a gift from his uncle that he has no choice but to accept, and a completely different timer looming over his head, counting down the days until his maturity.

He looks down at his wrist.

 _Will it fade?_ Laurent does not say. _Will it scar?_

That night, he gets himself drunk and does not flinch when he sees Damianos kneeling in a slave’s chains before him, promising death in eyes gone hazy with drugs.

That night, he gets himself drunk and does not realize the quiet shifting of the numbers on his wrist, upwards.

 

ii.

He stands in front of his uncle and the council with his head raised.

Behind him, he hears Damen’s knees hitting the floor, the sound of labored breathing echoing in a hall that magnifies weakness.

 _Zero,_ his wrist reads, again, a quiet confirmation of what Laurent has begun to suspect, watching the number tick down, day by day.

Laurent does not look at his slave.

Contrary to what his uncle might think, contrary to the rumors clinging to the corners of the court like mold _,_ Laurent is not stupid.

It is not why he is here.

 _He saved my life,_ he thinks, _and now we are even._

He says, into the silence, “I humbly submit to your judgement, uncle, and to the judgement of the council.”

When he bends to kiss his uncle’s ring, he hides a smile at the _53_ on his wrist. Laurent has always loved games.

 

iii.

The next time it turns to _zero,_ Laurent is almost glad for it. It couldn’t have lasted, that strange peace they’d shared, the quiet evenings passed in his tent with a map and burgeoning respect between them.

Nicaise’s sightless eyes greet him inside a burlap sack, and he wants to kill everyone in the room.

Damen is only trying to help, he knows, but Laurent can’t help it; he’s hurting, and he wants Damen to hurt too, wants this man who has defied him and everything he thought of him to hurt as well.

Laurent tells him the truth of his brother’s betrayal, and watches the rage flash in Damen’s dark eyes, watches his hands flex at his sides.

Damen hits him. Laurent feels the pain of the blow in his cheek, his head snapping to the side.

 _Zero,_ his wrist reads. _It will be over._

He thinks of sapphires, and a life cut short. Thinks of Aimeric bleeding out by his wrists.

“No,” Laurent says. “Let him go.” He glances at his wrist, and finds that the number has crawled up to _3._

 

iv.

“When did you realize?” Damen’s voice is soft with sleep, and he doesn’t turn around.

Laurent starts, drawn out of his thoughts. He’d been tracing the scars on Damen’s back, the scars that he’d put there, and hadn’t realized Damen was still awake. “What?”

“That we’re soulmates.”

 _Since the beginning,_ Laurent wants to say, but no - that’s not true. “The night you ran,” he says instead, tracing the number on his wrist. _112._ “Did you know? You were supposed to die that day, perhaps run through by my uncle’s guards in an alley.”

Damen huffs, shoulders shaking, with what could’ve been laughter. Laurent scowls, finding it somehow offensive that Damen should be so blasé about what could’ve been his own death. To think that Damen could’ve died, could’ve died over and over again, and they never would’ve had _this -_

Laurent doesn’t find it funny at all.

“When did you?” he says instead, and even he can hear how snappish it sounds.

Damen is silent for so long that Laurent thinks he might’ve fallen back asleep, but he says, so softly that it’s almost lost to the rustle of the sheets, “You were going to die to the outriders.”

Laurent remembers. Remembers being caught off guard by a man on a horse and his sword swinging towards him, remembers being too tired - exhausted - too slow, too late, to duck out of the way. He remembers - “You threw your sword at him.”

Damen chuckles. “To be honest, I didn’t think it would work.”

Laurent hadn’t thought so, either, but Damen, he’s learned, continues to prove him wrong.

“What does it say now?” he asks, seized by a morbid sort of a curiosity. “Am I going to die tomorrow?”

Damen shifts, hesitates just long enough that Laurent starts to think that maybe he _is._

“No,” Damen says. “No, you won’t.”

They both know he didn’t answer the question, but Laurent doesn’t ask again.

This is enough.

 

v. 

Standing in the prison cell with his hands bound in front of him, Laurent wonders for a moment if there’s a _zero_ scrawled across Damen’s wrist now, the exhale of a breath that had been held since the day Auguste died on a battlefield awash with the glow of the setting sun.

_Will it fade? Will it scar?_

Damen will know.

 

vi.

Every time he blinks, he sees Damen lying prone at the foot of the stairs, his blood staining the steps, and he feels a fresh surge of anger towards Kastor, towards his uncle. He can feel himself tiring, can feel the way his movements feel sluggish and his limbs, too heavy.

The point of his sword dips for a fraction of a second, he steps back, compensates, and sees the moment that Kastor seizes on his mistake, but Laurent hasn’t spent the last decade practicing Akielon sword forms tirelessly every day to make _mistakes_ because he is tired.

He drives the sword through Kastor’s chest, revels in the way the man’s eyes - so like Damen’s, and yet _not_ \- widen in surprise before they glaze over and he sags. Laurent almost stumbles under the weight, but he drops both man and sword to the ground unceremoniously in favor of going to Damen’s side.

“It’s going to be okay,” he murmurs, taking Damen’s hand in both of his. He catches a glimpse of Damen’s soulmate mark, a mirror to his own.

 _One_ , it reads, a declaration to the world. One more minute, one more hour, one more day.

One more year.

One more lifetime.

In the distance, there are bells.


End file.
